Being prepared...

My Grandfather was very active in the Boy Scouts of America. I think he earned a Silver Beaver award. My Dad talked a lot about "being prepared" and often recited a variation of the Boy Scout promise in a funny sing-song voice "I promise to do my duty to God and my country..." and that we should always "be prepared."

Today we were not very prepared....

In the midst of pondering this sentence in a manuscript I am working on... 

In the setting of cardiomyocyte endomitosis, increased expression of survivin as a chromosomal passenger protein may be followed by enhanced formation of cyclinD1/cdk4 complexes because of the survivin-mediated abrogation of the inhibitory effect of p16^INK4a on cdk4.

I am interrupted.... Richard comes rushing in. "Sue is at the door," he says and he begins frantically to put his regular shorts on. He runs around in his boxers (the fly is sewn up) most of the day in the summer, so there is really very little difference between them and a pair of cotton shorts, but they are still obviously underwear and he is ill prepared to greet visitors at the door.

 I am also wearing a pair of his boxers (also with the fly sewn up), but my t-shirt is long enough that only a few inches of the material is visible below the hem of the t-shirt.

Sue is indeed at the door, bearing gifts. She has bought a bag of pretzels and about 6 containers of yogurt for our son, who at the moment was sitting on the couch watching a comedy DVD on our mini-DVD player that Sue gave him on Sunday to cheer hm up.

Sue does not come in, because she has milk in the car and it is hot outside, so all of Richard's rushing around to make himself presentable, was for naught. I think I will suggest to him that he keep a pair of shorts in his office so he can quickly change.


It has been amazing to us how gracious and kind people are. One often does not have a chance to recognize depth of character in friends and associates until something happens to bring it out.


Another bit of good news today. The various health care providers that have taken care of our son are beginning to wonder about when they will be paid. I don't blame them. A very quick and not entirely accurate calculation shows his medical bills are at least at $150,000 and have probably sailed right on past that. He called the people who are shepherding his Medicaid claim about what he should do about this, and happened to mention that he had already been approved for Social Security. Suddenly that changed everything. So, we got busy faxing documents and she said he should automatically be approved for Medicaid and that the medical review process that is holding everything up can be stopped in its tracks.

To avoid turning this blog into an ongoing medical bulletin, I have created a page for him at Caring Bridge.